Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The pain is always bringing me a lesson. If I listen to the lesson when the pain is manageable, the pain won't get gargantuan and flatten me entirely, because I will have received the message at the center. I receive it as gently as I can, because the cruelest thing that I do to myself is try to push myself through an experience.
There will be a wealth of facts revealed and revisited in [Underground] pertaining to Harriet Tubman. That is a huge part of my excitement, the fact that this generation will get such a beautifully-detailed introduction to a hero and icon that has largely lived in a few pages of our history books and in one-dimensional photographs.
I'm not a movie star, but I've been an actress forever, and the first time I went on a date with my husband, he said to me, 'So I hear you're an actress. I've never seen anything you've done.' We were like, oh gosh, 21 when I met him, and I laughed, because I'd done 'Life Goes On,' and 'Christy,' and I mean, I'd been working forever.
I've always appreciated directors but I have a newfound appreciation for them and producers and everyone who does what they do that actors don't see. When you have one job, that's all you care about, that's all you're supposed to focus on. But focusing on so many different things, I was introduced to how hard everyone else works too.
What's really important for us is that our home base is in L.A., and when we move to Toronto - where 'Suits' is filmed - we move as a unit and are always together in the same place. My 5-year-old goes to two schools, which I was worried about, but it ended up being an amazing, self-esteem-building experience for her. She celebrates it.
Psychopaths are actually, really, really, really rare in our culture, are people who don't... Or in society, in the world. They're people who don't feel guilt. They're people who don't feel fear. I think that most of us feel those things. There's a kind of... They're almost like superheroes. Not to glorify them, but you know what I mean?
It was also incredibly serendipitous that I would later learn I shared a birthday with Whoop [Goldberg ]. I went on to be inspired by many other artists and forms of art, and was soon directed to a place that would help harness my experiences and develop my voice within the craft, LaGuardia High School of Performing Arts in New York City.
I like solitude. I'm very good at being disconnected. I do a lot of disappearing. People who know me go, 'Oh yeah, Mailman, she's gone into her cave again.' I'm like that, a bit of a hibernating bear. Like that crocodile that just sits there in the water and doesn't do much. I was always a bit of a dreamer as a kid, so that hasn't changed.
Because I've got an AFI award, I feel there is a certain expectation when I walk into a room, you know, that 'That Deb Mailman must know something!' But I'm just as nervous with every experience. I still doubt whether or not I can pull something off. I still think, 'When is the review going to come along that says Deb Mailman's not very good?'
I would love to appear in 'The Defenders.' I don't know - because hopefully she'll maybe be on the bad side. I don't know - I don't know what they'd do with Elektra in 'The Defenders,' but that would be a good dynamic, I think - to be confronted by these four superheroes, and I think it would be interesting - I'd be curious to see what they do.
It’s the age of celebrity. It’s the age of social media. But for we old school girls who don’t want to show up at every single event just ‘cause I don’t tweet–I have nothing to say. I’m not on Facebook. I mean it sounds like I have plenty to say, but that’s to people who I’m in a room with. I’m not that interesting, and the rest is none of your business.
Whenever you're on television, there's a responsibility to look timeless. I worked with the masters of film, fashion and beauty. I took their words into my soul, like a kind of religion that I exhibited to the world to all of our benefit. To this day, it takes a great deal of time to do my makeup the way I feel comfortable. At 82, it's still a part of what I do. I enjoy it.
The artistry on the show [ Underground] is apparent in each episode. From the riveting writing to the purposeful and precise direction, the masterful work of the DP [Director of Photography] Kevin McKnight and his crew, and the layers and depths each actor goes to to ensure we the audience feel a human connection to these characters led me to sign my name on the dotted line.
Once the Fugitive Slave Act took effect, the Northern states were no longer safe for those who managed to escape from being enslaved. The second season of Underground does explore Canada's role in providing a welcoming place for the thousands who were in danger of being captured and returned to their owners, and those who escaped by way of rerouting beyond the American borders.
My family’s said to me from the beginning, ‘People are always going to tell you to pick what you want to be when you grow up. You take that and throw it out the window, that’s garbage. People are complicated and we love many things and we’re passionate about many things. You can be a human rights activist and also be doing these comedy plays in your community and that’s OK. All those things are a part of who you are and you can love them equally.
It’s wonderful, it’s expressive. It’s a way of using a part of my instrument that I’m comfortable and familiar with. The voice is such a vital part of crafting a character. I’m so pleased that I have the kind of voice that prints well and that people want to hear. I’ve had friends actually say, ‘You know, I was in the kitchen, and the television was on and I heard you.’ I love hearing that there’s something familiar about my sound, and that to some people it’s soothing.
In the beginning, I found myself dealing with a show business dictated by male white supremacists and chauvinists. As a black female, I had to learn how to tap dance around the situation. I had to ... find a way to present my point of view without being pushy or aggressive. In the old days, the only women I saw in this business were in makeup, hairdressing, and wardrobe departments. Now I'm surrounded by women executives, writers, directors, producers, and even women stagehands.
[Harriet Tubman] spoke passionately about her parents, her friends, shared stories about her childhood - learning about all these elements and aspects of her was mind-blowing and educational for me as a woman because I have to sometimes remind people that have known me for years, even in past relationships, that I'm still a woman, I still have vulnerabilities even though my aesthetic feels strong, powerful and full of all of the wisdom in the world, I'm still growing and becoming.
To talk about something like prostitution, the other person then becomes the wild card that will have a response, and it may not be the response you want. Sometimes I think saying it would be selfish to tell them is still being under the illusion that you have all the power. You say it would be selfish to tell them, when in fact you're scared that in telling them, it gives them the power to do what they might want to do because once they know, they become somebody who could be reactive.
I suppose our lives need to be more integrated. We have white communities and black communities and white country clubs and black country clubs. It's very important when we integrate ourselves, and it helps us to have a better understanding of the world, to people all over the world and this is the time in history that we have become very aware of how important that is, so I think it's just really-we have to know each other and work together and play together in order to write about each other.
It's no mistake that Harriet Tubman is revisiting us, in different forms, right now, as we travel through a very contentious time in the world. Her spirit is one that we absolutely need today, as we face odds that are akin to the divisive and systemic oppression that we read about in our history books, but it's taken on a modern-day articulation of itself. I almost believe that Harriet Tubman asked God for a leave like, "I'm gonna need to go back down there and take care of some things. They're in trouble."
Heterosexual women ask questions that are a lot to do with what I did to my body and what that was like to lose all that weight and so on. To me it just reveals that that's a preoccupation of theirs. Or gay women have been really keen on knowing how I felt about playing a gay character and have often wanted to talk about their own experiences with children. Straight men have often shown some sense of relief, that they get to experience the philanderer as a woman and not have to judge her in the same way. That's fascinating to me.
The lesson that I would hope everyone would learn quite early in their career is don't take it personally. Whatever it is that happens, you're accepted for a role or rejected for a role of whatever, don't take it personally. It's part of the business and the person that is either hiring or firing-that's their business. That's what they are there for and it has nothing to do with how you feel about ... It has to do with someone else's perception of should you do this particular part, so just don't take it personally,. The business is really about rejection, so don't take it personally.